Ok I know this sounds like a line but….
We are just finishing the term at fxphd and at the end of the month we announce the Oct 08 term. It is about now that I start to get really worried about the matching what we have done in the past at fxphd. Do we have anything ? Do we have enough ? I start to get twitchy and the then down right nervous. I mean … do we have it - in terms of new courses and cool stuff?
But not for next term ! - No NEXT term is looking mind expandingly cool - it is for the term AFTER next. I swear this is true: I live with this fear of how will we come up with cool new stuff to blow everyone’s mind… but not for next term - we have been working on those courses for months,…
no I am worrying about 2009… You see we now know 90% of the courses for the Oct 08 term and it is a cracker. We wont announce the courses yet as you can not enroll - so why get you all excited and not have anywhere to join BUT when we do release the courses in just 11 days, I will be stunned if people don’t think this is the strongest term we have ever had… which leaves the question… how do we top it next year ??
Oh well - hey there are worse problems. Oh and thanks to everyone who posted such cool podcasts - excellent posts guys.
September 17th, 2008 at 11:19 am
For me covering C4D body paint and the new projection man stuff is a must. There is next to nothing substantial out there now. Plus I think it would be the next logical step in the C4D stuff covered already.
September 18th, 2008 at 8:40 am
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own…Just a little something I heard somewhere. Anyways, I really appreciate all that you guys put in to the classes. I’m waiting in anticipation with you guys
September 19th, 2008 at 6:27 am
First off, the ‘technique’ of following what interests you guys has worked very well, so stick with that and I’m sure things will be fine. Also, other than maybe another Tim-C4D class covering the new ver11 stuff, I’m fine with jsut sticking with what we’ve got for a term or 2 to get caught up. The list is always so amazing that something has to be dropped in favor of another. I usually can find 5 or 6 that I’m really interested in and then have to cut it down to the 3 most important/beneficial - but I’d still like to get the others in one day
Without anything new at all, I could easily do next term with 3 classes (Nuke, Maya, Red 101’s) and then the following term grab the next levels of all those. So don’t kill yourselves trying to create tons of new stuff each term - our cups already runneth over. Ahhh… first world problems 
Cheers,
Sean
September 20th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Every term has its flaws and its success. I don’t think you have the obligation to raise the bar each term. If you keep being passionate about the stuff, if you keep listening to our requests, and if you don’t become too pretentious , everything is going to be alright. Trying to top each time can have some back effects, because it can sound like marketing stuff, and people can get disappointed with too much anticipation…Most of us are here to stay. So keep building strong foundations.
September 20th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Yeah françois, thanks for the post, - it is not about just trying to top ourselves for its own sake, but we do this professionally these days - this is our thing… and as such we are out to improve - just like you would be with any visual effect… so the competition and not taking your commitment to us for granted is what drives us. I think the goal of ‘bettting’ each term is sort of required to commit to even running the programs… the day we stop wanting to push the concept and find new and really exciting ways of doing fxphd is a day I hope will never come.
Mike
September 21st, 2008 at 8:21 am
Mike, you are NOT a likely candidate to loose passion or stop raising the bar:-)
All you got is your instincts and these are not going to change, but you will forever have to deal with the little voice saying you will ‘fail’
Put it into the business plan. These are constants not variables.
With great admiration to your work over many years.
Vico.
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:50 pm
I agree with Sean T. Each term I would like to take 5-6 courses and the I have to wittle it down to 3. If you offer classes from previous terms then I could take courses that interested me such as the matte painting or synth eyes intermediate. I took the synth eyes intro but I could take that course and the intermediate level.
On another point of contention I took synth eyes because it was the cheaper program to obtain. I cannot run the VPN program offering from my Verizon wireless air card. Both VPN and Verizon can’t run at the same time.
If you had some type of program that I can obtain education versions of programs that would be a much more effective approach to accessing higher end more expensive programs.
I love FXPHD, continue to push the boundaries and demystify techniques used behind the scenes.
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:58 pm
One way that would keep FXPHD on the cutting edge would be a breakdown of how the most innovative commercials, VFX and SFX were achieved.
The lesson teach would take on a challenge and breakdown on aspect of the pre prodcution, production, post and finishing elements of a project.
This way the project would cover several aspects of each. In this way the post people would have FXPHD version of the footage experiment with, and the production folks would be able to extend their cinematographic techniques.
In a term 3-4 projects could be covered.
This would be amazing to have as a resource if you guys could pull it off.
I hope this suggestion leads you in a cool direction. But this would be cool to see.
September 23rd, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Kevin G - while I love that idea, getting the access to the material, yet alone getting material for each student would be extremely hard. in this age of DRM - even doing press on some films and TVC can be murder… and take weeks and weeks to get permission. And then we only get a few stills. I love the idea - but man I dont know how viable this great idea is…
thanks
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:52 pm
I know it’s tough. I just wanted to put my dream scenario out there.
I wanted to put it in your mind, cause I thought it might lead the heads at FXPHD in a unique direction, but It was just a suggestion.
Let me just say that you guys are real innovators and I am just following the best in the biz.
Kevin